my random ramblings about crafts, writing, books and kids

Archive for the tag “muse”

Me write like crazy woman. Yep. I guess I’m unblocked. I think the stress of big project deadlines looming was causing the blockage. And the fact that I was stuck on the sg1friendathon story for so long. Once I got that sorted out I was able to start writing again. I also decided to just not do het_bigbang . I like the story idea I have but since it took so long to figure it out I won’t have time to write it (9k words are do tomorrow and I still have zero). I mean I could probably write the story if I really pushed myself but not in the mood now. Sad. Maybe I can expand it and use it for NaNo but then I had that Easter Island adventure that I wanted to use. It needs research, though. I’ll have to think about that one.

Anyway, the last few nights I’ve been writing, writing, writing. I even got some writing done during the day with the radio playing AND the kids going crazy. That’s unusual. I really have to be in a zone to write with all the noise. I love that.

I’ve finished several projects including one where I had to cut words out of an already written story. If you read my journal you know I HATE cutting. And this particular story was one I had issues with when I originally wrote it. My 1st draft was like 800 words but according to the challenge it had to be within 10 words of 500. It took me forever to cut it down to 508 (I think it was, something like that) words. I felt like I cut so much good stuff out of it, mostly describing Jack’s feelings about the situation and some set up stuff. But the story worked as it was and still got the point across with some angst. This time I had to cut it to 240-260 words. Oy. The challenge from hell, lol. But actually it ended up being fairly easy and I learned a valuable lesson about less being more. I think I’m going to use that with one of the stories I’m working on that’s gotten kind of wordy. Snip, snip, snip, it’s going to get cut down.

So, the big stories I’m working on (because there’s always a few going at once in case I get bored) right now are going pretty good. I have like a bajillion challenges due but I’m not stressing anymore. I’m just doing what I can, writing what my muse finds interesting. She’s not too happy with the browbeating from last week so I’m letting her have her way for awhile. Things tend to work better that way.

One story is from the Seven Deadly Sins challenge at fictionland . It’s supposed to be like 7 little drabbles about the sins. You know like 700-1000 words for the entire challenge. But nooooo, I can’t do that. The story that popped into my head was much more involved than that. I started writing it the other night and typed up what I had yesterday. It was already over 2000 words and I didn’t even get to the part about the sins, lol. That I started writing last night in my notebook. I hand wrote 13 more pages. I’m not on the third sin of the story and moving quickly to the 4th. Since this part flows more quickly I’ve decided to use those cutting skills on the beginning because it’s the end part of this story that’s important not the beginning. Hoping to get it done tonight because it’s due on Tuesday. Yikes. If I can’t finish it in time it’s not the end of the world (it’s worth like 50pts, though). It will get done and posted by the end of this week whether I make the deadline or not. 🙂

The other story I worked on last night was for another fictionland challenge. Way back at the beginning of the phase we got this mega prompt table. Okay, it was only 15 prompts but each story has to be 1000 words. Prompts can be combined (up to 3 in a story) but still have to have the 1000 words per prompt. We’ve had months to work on this and I’m just starting now. Well, actually I started one last month (for the same prompt) but it turned into another adventure story that would have been too long to finish for the challenge. So I transferred it to my “in progress, hopefully I can finish some day” pile (yes, there are actual piles). The one I started yesterday was flowing much quicker and full of angst and Sam/Jack goodness. Stranded fic is so easy to write. It’s done, using two prompts and I hope it’s over 2000 words. It’s 1 1/2 pages typed and 3 1/2 pages written right now. If not I’ll pad it as I type it up later.

I like the set up of this story so much I’m thinking of using some of the other prompts to write a sequel because I know people will ask. There’s actually an AU challenge at stargateland due on Saturday and I’m thinking I could use this. Originally I was going to finish a story for my alt!reality series (the one where Jack’s a major and Sam’s the man, lol) but this would work and it’s more fresh in my head.

All in all I wrote (by hand, mind you… running one pen completely dry) almost 17 pages last night. That doesn’t include what I wrote during the day at the computer. Nice. Thank you muse for cooperating. Now it’s time to type. And edit. Still have to edit the sg1friendathon story. I needed a break from it so I could see it with fresh eyes. Can’t wait to have it done and posted.

Tonight I’m going to finish up the 7 deadly sins story, work on one of the Homesick stories for fictionland (might be one of the sequels to the fic I just wrote), start hopefully the AU fic (another sequel) and hopefully get to 1 or 2 of the prompts from the table. I won’t finish all that but I hope to at least start them so I have an idea of where I’m going. All of this stuff is due this week, lol. It won’t all get done but all these story ideas are knocking around in my head and need to be written.

Somehow I’m maintaining the house in a somewhat tidy fashion. And I managed to do all the laundry (just have 1 more load of my clothes and the towels to do).

On other news: Jack seems to be in a better mood. He’s currently getting four teeth and is not a happy camper at all. I’ve had to resort to using orajel on his gums to get him to relax otherwise all he does is cry, throw tantrums, cling to me and refuse to eat even though it’s obvious he’s hungry. Poor boy. He woke up in a great mood today, though, and just devoured a small bowl of cheerios, a toddler cereal bar, some yogurt melts and then a handful of dry cereal. Hopefully his appetite continues to lunch because he’s a pain to feed. Not like my other kids who would eat anything you put in front of him. He has to be picky. Grrr.

And I got my LJ straightened out. Decided to go with just 2 months of paid time for now. Did two more months of the account and upgraded to the full userpic package (so now I can add even more pics… you know, of people other than Jack O’Neill, lol.). It was $11. That will take me to October and then I can decide what I want to do depending on our money situation. My husband gets a huge raise at the end of October that we’ll start to see in November. It’s $6/hour which should make our financial situation more stable. We’re doing okay now and can pay all our bills but there isn’t always enough left for what we want. We tend to overspend on the fun stuff (going out to eat and buying movies and stuff) and then now happens: we have no cereal, no bread, no butter, no meat, almost no frozen veggies and no money for more, lol. We have food just not what we want to eat right now. The cereal and bread is the biggest issue with the kids home for the summer. They go through it so fast. During the school year they’re on the free lunch program so eat breakfast and lunch at school. Anyway, hubby is supposed to stop and get bread, butter and veggies (I think) on his way home from work. So he said but… you never know with him.

In conclusion: expect to see a bunch of stories from me in the next couple of weeks because I’m on a roll now.

Like this:

Not sure that’s the best way to treat my muse. Probably not. She’ll be mad. But she needs to get her ass in gear.

My sg1friendathon still isn’t done. STILL! What the hell is wrong with me. Although I’m getting much help from my wonderful beta nymaeria . She’s really helped me get the story on track and focused because I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing with it. She took one look at it, saw the problem I was having and helped me figure out how to fix it. YAY for good betas. 🙂

So the story is moving along but I’m having trouble finding time to concentrate on it with the kids. They are driving me up a wall. Just three weeks until school starts. It’s becoming my new mantra. In fact three weeks from today will be the first day all four of my older kids are in school ALL DAY. The older three start on the 30th but my kindergartener only goes 2 1/2 days a week. Tuesday is not one of the days she goes. So her first day is the 31st but the younger three kids have half days every Wednesday (my middle schooler has a full day) so they’ll be home by 1pm. Thursday, though all four are in school. Oldest leaves at 7am to get to her bus stop and will get home a little after 3pm. The elementary kids leave at 8am and get home around 4pm. So 8am-3pm it’s just me and Jack and he takes a two hour nap. YAY! Oh, wait. My husband will be home most likely. D’oh. Well, at least we can go get some breakfast or something, lol.

On to other Muse issues. I organized all my challenges for stargateland and fictionland the other day (yes, I have actual lists so I don’t forget). Part of my blockage was due to the fact that I had all these other little projects I needed to work on but I wasn’t “allowing” myself to do anything. Like punishment for not finishing the friendathon. Well, that’s not helpful at all. My Muse was not happy. So the other night I refused to even look at the friendathon story and focused on my other challenges. I finished the three dialogue only stories pretty quick. The next on my list was a challenge at fictionland to write about the 7 Deadly Sins. I wasn’t sure I was even going to do that one because every story idea made my characters sound like big asshats.

Then I realized my main fandom is scifi and aliens make them do all sorts of idiot things. And, voila! A story is born. And it’s one that seems to be flowing. And so far very teamy. With this had been my friendathon story, lol. I wrote 3 pages the first night (that’s longhand). Last night I worked on it and added 11 more pages and it’s just getting into the meat & potatoes of the story where Jack starts acting crazy. I’m hoping to get it done by the August 16 deadline. Either way it’s shaping up to be a good story.

So, maybe my muse doesn’t need a beating. But she sure is aggravating me lately. I am thinking of dropping out of het_bigbang . I have zero words written and need 9k by next week and then just a little over a month left to write the rest. Don’t think that’s going to happen. Sad, I know. But something has to give here. I do have an angsty Sam/Jack story planned for it but I don’t think I’ll have time to finish it. Not that I haven’t written 25k words in less time than that I just have too much else on my plate. Sigh.